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How to see pinyin lyrics on Android while you listen
Many music apps show the original lyrics but not the pinyin, and switching between a lyrics website and your player is awkward. Here is how to get pinyin lyrics on your Android phone while the music keeps playing, using PinyinLyrics.
What you need
- An Android phone (Android 8.0 or newer).
- A music app that shows the song title and artist in its media controls. Most do.
- Internet access, only to download the lyrics. Once a song's lyrics are saved as a favourite they can be opened without a connection.
Step by step
- Install the app. It's free and has no ads or accounts.
- Allow notification access. The app uses it only to read which song is playing (title, artist and position) from your music app. It doesn't read or store your notifications or messages.
- Allow "display over other apps". This lets the lyrics float over whatever app you're using.
- Play a song. Open the floating window (or turn on the automatic mode so it opens by itself). The lyrics appear with pinyin above each line and the current line highlighted.
- Move, resize or shrink the window to a small bubble when you need the screen.
- Mini mode shows only the current line over a nearly transparent background, handy over videos or social apps.
- Pinyin style: tone marks (nǐ hǎo), numbers (ni3 hao3) or no tones at all.
- Simplified or traditional: switch the characters shown.
- Wrong lyrics? Discard them and try the next match, or search by title and artist and pick the right version. The app remembers your choice for that song.
- Check that notification access and overlay permission are both enabled.
- Some phone makers stop background services to save battery. Remove the battery restriction for the app in your phone's settings.
- Not every song has lyrics available. Try the search button to look for another version.
Make it work for you
If the lyrics don't appear
What about Japanese and Korean?
The same window shows romaji for Japanese (with the reading of kanji) and Revised Romanization for Korean. See romaji and Korean romanization in lyrics.